STUART — A shark expert on Wednesday said a photo he saw in a news report indicates the bite sustained Sunday by a 3-year-old girl at Bathtub Beach came from a shark.

“It’s a shark attack,” said George Burgess, director of the International Shark Attack File at the Florida Museum of Natural History at the University of Florida. “There’s no doubt about that.”

Burgess said he’s been studying shark attacks for about four decades.

Violet Jalil, 3, was bitten on the leg at Bathtub Beach while there with her mother, Jessica Veatch, 32, and others. Violet was taken to St. Mary’s Medical Center in West Palm Beach and is expected to be hospitalized for several weeks.

Veatch, of Port St. Lucie, on Tuesday said medical professionals were pleased with how the wound looked. She said Violet got more than 100 stitches.

“The semicircular pattern of the wound as indicated in the post-op photograph … is certainly diagnostic of a shark,” Burgess said.

Burgess said he plans to try to get in touch with the doctor who treated Violet to get the doctor’s input, and to see whether teeth fragments were left behind in the wound and also whether the doctor had photos prior to surgery.

“I don’t know the species or the size of the shark at this point in our investigation,” he said. “It would seem that with cooperation of the medical authorities I should be able to certainly get the size and perhaps the identity of the shark.”

“Those bleeding fish and struggling fish probably had a shark escort behind them when these guys brought them ashore,” he said.

A provoked attack means one initiated by humans, such as an angler getting bit while removing a hook from a shark’s mouth, feeding sharks or grabbing it by the tail.

Veatch said the bite is 7 inches wide. She said a surgeon at St. Mary's looked at the bite and said it appeared to be a 5- to 6-foot-long bull shark.

Veatch and her boyfriend, Richard Trachuk, said they saw teens or kids spearfishing and standing on the reef with spears and expressed concern. Veatch said they came through the swimming area with “whatever fish they had on their spears.” Trachuk said those doing the spearfishing were using chum.

Asked about Trachuk and Veatch’s reports of spearfishing, Montgelas said he wasn’t there at the time, but said lifeguards would tell spearfishers they are not allowed in the guarded area.

“If our guys had seen anybody inside of Bathtub with a speargun or anything like that, we would have to move them outside of the guarded area," he said.

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Heather Vogel Thalwitzer of Melbourne shot this video at sunrise Aug. 21 of a shark in the shallows spooking mullet above the trough. Thalwitzer was enjoying a dawn walk in Indialantic with her 8-year-old son, Harrison.
CONTRIBUTED VIDEO BY HEATHER VOGEL THALWITZER